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Unformatted text preview: 22 / Split Routinegswand
Circuit Training 278 KEEPING IT UP THERE are two main reasons people choose to split their routines. Some do
it to cut down on training time — preferring to do fewer exercises per
day than a total body workout involves. (Note: many who choose this ﬁrst
option also want to allow more time and energy each day for cardiovascular
work.) The second and opposite reason is to allow more time to work out
with weights. This .is actually the more common reason among serious
weight trainers, and, as you become more acquainted with the wide variety
of exercises possible, you too may ﬁnd yourself wanting to split your work-
outs to include several assistance exercises for each body part so that you
can really concentrate on a particular area. The most common split is to do four workouts a week —— two upper—
body workouts and two lower-body workouts — with abdominal work done
all four days. Generally these are done on Monday—Tuesday and Thursday-
Friday with Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday off; but some people prefer
Tuesday-Thursday and Saturday—Sunday so they’ll have more time on the
weekends for longer workouts. Lower-body workouts alternate with upper-
body workouts to allow proper recovery. Some long-term trainers break their workouts down even further—
using a six-day schedule that allows, for instance, two chest, shoulders, and
triceps workouts, two upper back and biceps workouts, and two leg and hip
workouts. This intense schedule is generally done only by experienced train-
ers who have reached a high level of ﬁtness that allows them to both recover
and beneﬁt from workouts such as these. Ian: “I trained on a six-day schedule during my ﬁnal competitive years
and during the eighteen months of my weight loss. But when I ﬁrst started
training, back in 1974, I trained only twice a week and moved to three days
only after I’d gone through several cycles. I moved to six days mainly be—
cause, when we were at Auburn University, we coached both men and women powerlifters and I was in the gym on a daily basis. I liked training
that way, actually, and I made good gains, but after I dropped my body
weight and leveled off, I cut back to a four-day routine simply because of
time. Now, I train Monday-Wednesday, Friday—Saturday, and do aerobic
work on the other three days.” If you’ve adapted well to the basic program and have the time and the
intestinal fortitude, give split routines a try. Just remember that you don’t
want to train your legs every day —— give them at least one and preferably
two days to rest before you stress them with weights again. Since split rou-
tines grew out of the desire for greater diversity, you’ll note in some of the
samples that while both workouts for the lower-body, for instance, are simi-
lar, they are not necessarily exactly the same. Many trainers make some
substitutions in their split routines in order to work the muscles in as many
ways as possible. Also, most lifters ﬁnd that certain particularly exhausting
exercises — especially the deadlift — can’t be borne more than once a
week. Again, look at all the sample routines that follow, study the patterns,
and review the Tips for each exercise before committing yourself. This introductory four-day split routine should follow completion of the Split-Routine A
basic cycle and the expanded basic cycle. If an exercise is indicated as being
“heavy” on Monday, then it would be “light” (85%) on Thursday, etc. This
applies to both the upper- and lower-body days. Mondays and Thursdays -— Upper Tuesdays and Fridays — Lower
Body Body Stretching High Pull — Heavy Wide-Grip Lat Pulldown —— Heavy Squat — Light Dumbbell Rowing Motion — Heavy Leg Extension — Light Bench Press — Light Leg Curl — Light Dumbbell Fly —— Light Calf Raise — Light Triceps Press — Light Seated Twist Curl —— Light Side bend Sit-up Leg Raises SPLIT ROUTINES AND CIRCUIT TRAINING 279 sp|it Routine 3 Ian: “This is my four-day-per-week routine that I’ve been doing since
our move to Texas. Since my body weight has stabilized and I’m not training
for a powerlifting competition, this could, I suppose, be called a ‘mainte-
nance’ program. One of the things I’m trying to ‘maintain’ is some extra size
in my upper body so that my proportions are better. That’s why there’s so
much emphasis on upper-body work. Please remember that this would have
to be considered an advanced routine. Don’t try to do this many exercises in
one workout until you’ve trained for quite a while, if you work close to your
limit as we recommend. Note that I deadlift only once a week, doing high
pulls on the other leg and hip day. I also have some slight variations in my
upper-body work.” a " Monday Friday
Stretching Stretching
Bench Press —— Heavy Wide-Grip Lat Pulldown — Heavy
Incline Dumbbell Press — Heavy Close-Grip Lat Pulldown — Heavy
Incline Dumbbell Fly — Heavy Dumbbell Rowing Motion — Heavy
Press behind Neck — Heavy Bench Press — Light
Close-Grip Bench Press — Heavy Incline Barbell Press —-Light
Dip Decline Dumbbell Fly
Triceps Pressdown — Heavy - Press behind Neck — Light
Wide—Grip Lat Pulldown — Light Close-Grip Bench Press —— Light
Close-Grip Lat Pulldown —— Light Triceps Pressdown ~—— Light
Dumbbell Rowing Motion — Light Curl —— Heavy
Curl — Light Sit—up
Sit-up Leg Raise
Leg Raise
Saturday
Wednesday Stretching
Stretching Squat —— Heavy
Deadlift — Heavy High Pull
Squat —— Light Lunge — Light
Lunge —— Light Leg Extension — Light
Leg Press — Light « Leg Curl — Light
Leg Extention — Light Sit-up
J ackknife Side bend Standing Twist 280 KEEPING IT UP This is a six-day-per-week routine for advanced trainers. 3pm Routine c Monday-Friday Thursday
(Make Monday heavy and Friday Stretching
light) Stiff-Leg Deadlift Stretching _ Power Snatch
Chin Leg Press — Light
Wide-Grip Lat Pulldown Lunge
Close-Grip Lat Pulldown Leg Curl —— Light
Curl-Bar Curl Leg Extension '— Light
Concentration Curl Bent-Leg Sit-up
Bent-Leg Sit-up
Hanging Knee-in Sunday Stretching
Tuesday-Saturday Squat —— Heavy
(Make Tuesday light and Saturday Leg Press —— Heavy heavy) Leg Extension —— Heavy Stretching Leg Curl — Heavy
Bench Press Calf Raise
Incline Press Hyperextension
Seated Dumbbell Press Crunch
Front Raise with Dumbbell Seated Twist Curl-Bar Triceps Press
Triceps Pressdown
Seated Twist Side bend Crunch Ian: “This is the six-day-per—week routine that I used to train for the Split Routine D
1983 Women’s Nationals, at which I weighed 146 pounds and made a
world-record deadlift. It is the hardest workout routine I’ve ever done in my
many years of training. Some exercises are grouped together to indicate that
they were done in what are called ‘supersets,’ meaning that one exercise
was done immediately after another exercise had been completed. Then
after both (or more) exercise sets had been completed, I took a short rest
before proceeding to the next superset. This routine is exceptionally long —
I would never recommend that anyone do this many exercises at a time. I did
it because I wanted to create rapid changes as I lost my body weight and be-
cause, once I got started on this high-level training, I got hooked. I liked the SPLIT ROUTINES AND CIRCUIT TRAINING 281 282 KEEPING IT UP Dumbbell Press way all the upper-body work helped my ﬁgure become more proportional and
how much larger my bust measurement got, even though I was losing
weight, not to mention how strong I was getting everywhere. During this
cycle I also did a lot of powerwalking, with added weight, and rode my bicy-
cle at least three times a week. However, as I got close to the contest, I cut
back drastically on my cycling and powerwalking to saVe my energies for my
workouts. After the meet was over, I Went right back to my aerobics and started another cycle.“ Monday-Friday (Monday light and Friday heavy)
Stretching Chin Wide-Grip Lat Pulldown
Close-Grip Lat Pulldown
Seated Cable Pull
Dumbbell Rowing Motion
Curl—Bar Curl
Concentration Curl
Abdominal Work Superset Superset Tuesday-Saturday
(Tuesday light and Saturday heavy)
Bench Press Incline Dumbbell Press
Decline Dumbbell Press
Decline Dumbbell ﬂy
Press behind Neck Superset Superset Front Raise with Dumbbell
Side Lateral
Rear-.Deltoid Raise
Triceps Press Triceps Pressdown
Abdominal Work Superset Thursday Stretching Deadljft Squat — Lift Leg Press — Light
Lunge — Light Leg Curl — Light Leg Extension — Light
Abdominal Work Superset Sunday Stretching . Squat — Heavy Partial Squat Partial Deadlift below Knee
Leg Press —— Heavy
Lunge — Heavy Leg Curl — Heavy Leg Extension — Heavy
Abdominal Work Superset Throughout this book we have encouraged you to train as rapidly as possible
in order to get maximum aerobic beneﬁt from your weight workouts. If your
time is very limited, however, and you want to try to really squeeze a lot of
aerobic beneﬁt from your weight workouts, you might want to give circuit
training a try. Popular with many coaches because it is an efﬁcient way to
put large groups of people through a workout and because it builds endur- ance as well as some muscular strength, circuit training is still not a method
used much by those who train outside of institutional settings. Who knows
why? Perhaps because it doesn’t build strength and muscle as well as stan«
dard training; or perhaps because you don’t get that feeling of a good, tight
pump, since your blood is rushing hither and yon over your entire body in-
stead of engorging one particular area at a time, or perhaps because it’s a
tough routine to follow on a regular basis. ‘ To do circuit training you need either a multistation weight-training
machine or enough equipment at your home or gym to set up ﬁve or six dif-
ferent exercises so you are able to move from one to another without stop~
ping. This is often tough in many gyms because you have to share
equipment and sometimes wait in lines. However, with two bars and some
dumbbells, you can easily do circuit training at home. Simply set up a pat-
tern of exercises such as this: squat, bench press, lat pulldown, lunge, curl,
triceps press, squat, bench press, etc. Continue moving from exercise to ex-
ercise until ﬁve sets of each exercise have been done and follow the princi-
ples of periodization as much as possible. Circuit training works well during
the Hypertrophy stage of periodization, though we would not recommend it
during Power. For that phase you need to take more time, concentrate on
increasing your poundages, and do activities such as cycling and power~
walking for your aerobics. But if you want cardiovascular improvement to the max, research has
shown that circuit training does produce marked aerobic beneﬁts. In fact, in
a study done by Drs. Paul Ward, Larry Gettman, and R. D. Hagan, it was
found that a group of men doing only Circuit training made just as much aer»
obic improvement as another group who did circuit training and jogging. The trick to aerobic improvement from circuit training is to keep your
pulse elevated for long periods of time. This is great if you’ve got the stamina
for it, though we admit we’ve found it a hard way to train for more than a few
weeks at a time. If you do want to give circuit training a try, alternate lower-body and
upper-body exercises. Here are two sample routines, which could be used on alternate workout days. Make sure to stretch before beginning your weight
work. Sample Circuit 1 Sample Circuit 2
Squat High Pull Bench Press Incline Press
Lunge Leg Press
Overhead Dumbbell Press Bench Press Leg Curl Lunge Curl-Bar Curl Triceps Pressdown
Bent-Leg Sit-up Bent—Leg Sit-up .QPIJT RnIITINEs AND CIRCUIT TRAINING 282 ...
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